Espresso Love (A Dystopian Japan Novel) #Wattys2014

Hole in the Ground

- Hole in the Ground -

The sun above is more forceful here, as if we are closer to the sky and the sun is trying to make an argument. Both the ocean breeze and the sun collide, and we're caught in between. I don't quite understand what they are trying to say however, whether they're fighting for attention or hoping to drive us out of their miniature town. There are no buildings higher than two or three storeys here to provide a little headroom.

I feel entirely out of place. As if I had been stripped of my skin. True enough that there's still a sensation of someone watching my every move, but I've come to push it aside and focus on what I'm doing - that isn't the feeling I'm concerned with. This is the feeling that I am in a strange alien world, and I have no alibi, no reason or justification to be here. The train had carried us and fragments of city air, bustling murmurs of memories, traveling through time and space and deposited us, like contagions in an unpolluted environment. We are intruders. We're not welcome. Deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. Here, the roads are desolate except for a few students and old villagers meandering down the streets. All of them have a sedated pace of such languor that the students, I'm sure, are cutting class. They all speak with low voices. A surfer visiting for the open shores rides by on a moped. We pass by a shrine or two, hiding at the top of dark stairs secluded by foliage. Every now and then, the ground drops off into a short cliff-face overlooking a patch of farmland or the forest comes up to swallow the houses. These trees seem to suck up sound from its surrounding, replacing it with whispers of the heart. It reminds me of Hayao Miyazaki animated films set in quiet ancient towns in the middle of nowhere. It's in these places where mystical spirits of nature awaken and take on physical allegorical form, blending legend and mythology with reality - and we face them with awe and fear.

Like the animations, it all begins to bring back images, blurry from time, running an old reel-fed film through my head. The memories are unclear but I realize I am feeling an overwhelming nostalgia. Something strikes a chord within me and sings through my body. My heart churns and begins to feel heavy. I remember the town I had lived in with my mother - though not the same - used to carry a similar hush of melancholic peace. What I recall now, aren't spectacular feats or rare occasions but simply cycling through town each day, from the top of a hill, whistling down a narrow road, or taking out the trash at night and feeling the breath of trees against my face. I remember stopping by the only crepe shop in town with a few school friends every week and sitting along a small river not too far from a stretch of rice paddies.

In such a place, all else starts to fade away and one loses touch with reality. Nothing really matters anymore, but the great trees and the deep shadows that shift in the wind. Past, present and future disappears, and the moment takes on its own life. Within, comes a powerful desire to latch onto that single moment, any moment of the mundane, and cherish its totality, its own beginning, middle and end, fearing that something great would be missing if you look away for an instant. Simplicity becomes the profound.

We follow one road which happens to be the central vein through the area. I had chosen one direction and stuck to it and by luck, we somehow ended up on the right one. Eventually we make it to the core of the town where most of the trees, except for a few chunks of grass and scraggly shoot, have been cleared away. On the left side we can see the land slope down gently and hear the roll of waves against the shore. Sea salt stains the air. There's a line of little shops here and cars tucked away like a squirrel's stowed away nuts. According to the address it would be around here, yet there is no sign of Resso Coffee.

We stop by a convenient store, a little run down, but looking like it had been renovated recently. Inside, a middle-aged man sits at the counter with a smile. He is rather thickset and tan, as if he had been farming all his life.